AMY (2015 Film)

I'd been wanting to watch this film for so long and last night I finally got round to it since Channel 4 had put it on their 'watch online' section on 4OD. (If you haven't watched it either, its on for another 20 days so make sure you watch it soon!) Whenever people think of Amy Winehouse, they think of her rollercoaster relationship with drugs, alcohol and depression but as this film makes clear, that is not what Amy should be remembered for. But instead, her remarkable talent and ability to retrospectively travel back to the Jazz age with her voice and channel the likes of Carol King and James Taylor but in a modern noughties style. One thing that Amy makes so clear throughout the film is that all she wanted to do was make the music; she didn't want the fame, it just followed her unconsciously around until her final days which makes us really think about the trauma and sadness that being in the limelight constantly can bring to a person. Amy did not die from fame but arguably the fame may have contributed to her downward spiral alongside the alcohol, excessive drug taking and her on and off relationship with Camden bad boy Blake Fielder-Civil. The film also makes these contributions extremely obvious when as viewers we discover more and more about Amy and it really does tell a biographic tale of Amy's life. It still amazes me that Amy managed to record a great deal of her life so that significant moments from her childhood, teenage years and early fame could be remembered and put together for a half biographical and autobiographical film.

Overall, I really enjoyed watching the film even though it does open your eyes up to the real consequences that drinking and drugs can lead to and therefore, I think this film was also a great strategy for raising awareness to those who did and did not followed Amy musically and brutally show people what can happen to them if they also go down the same path that Amy did. Regardless, to this day she will always go down as one of the best influences in music.

Amy's style:
So she wasn't exactly the most stylish girl on the block with her un-brushed beehive, heavy winged eyeliner and revealing patterned mini dresses but the star's style was so distinctive that you could almost say she made the 'dishevelled, last nights make up look' cool. Lets have a look at some of the best moments for Amy in the fashion world. There may not be many but there is no one else who has ever looked like Amy in the showbiz industry or even tried to steal her approached to the iconic 50's style.

Baby boy Fred Perry polos, colourful bandanas in her hair, bulky belts to compliment her petite silhouette and quirky coloured corsets all cultivated the graphic cartoonist vision that Amy's personal style was identified with. You either loved it or hated it and either way you will never forgot it.





John Paul Gaultier's tribute to Amy
During his Spring Summer couture debut at Paris Fashion Week in 2012, Jean Paul Gaultier paid tribute to the late star by dressing his models in 50's styled clothing, a cigarette in hand, her dreadful lip piercing and her signature beehive. (Although their beehives were a lot more neat and glamorous for the catwalk.) To channel Amy even more, Gaultier had a barbershop quarter play some of Amy's greatest hits as the models strutted down the runway. It was not exactly the couture collection that extreme fashionistas were waiting for but instead, Gaultier brought a sense of real life to the runway and that is something many fashion designers are not able to do when they are constantly trying to compete for the 'best avante garde' collection of the year. Whereas Gaultier took a step back and celebrated the life of one of the greatest musicians of the 21st century and for that he captured something that people will carry on talking about for a long long time.

"She was an icon of fashion and the sense of how she mixed clothes was great."- Jean Paul Gaultier